A Whole Year Already? Egads!

In celebration, Wes and I spent the past weekend condensing the best parts of our honeymoon into two fabulous days. On Saturday, we went to several wineries in the Cape May area and I was thoroughly drunk by 3pm. Then we got to Ocean City, NJ and checked into our hotel right next to the boardwalk. We passed out for a while and then went for a swim. Then we went to pick up Jessie who was taking the train to Atlantic City after work to spend the rest of the weekend with us. The three of us spent the rest of the evening consuming lousy Italian food, riding on a few carnival rides and getting an Old Tyme Photo (gangsters and flappers, FTW). It was a million degrees out so we decided to go back around 11 and passed out shortly after. On Sunday morning, Wes and I went out to get newspapers for crossword puzzles and got coffee and the most delicious donuts ever from Brown’s. We chipped away at the puzzles and lazed around the room until noon, when we had to check out. We were at the beach for 5 hours and enjoyed such things as swimming, a couple hours of sand castle building and gorging ourselves on boardwalk food (nachos, buffalo wings, crab fries, and lemonade). After beaching, we checked the remaining things off of our beach must-do list by playing a ridiculous game of “Haunted Golf”, getting ice cream, playing skee ball, pinball, Ms. Pacman, and air hockey at the arcade, using the rest of our ride tickets at the amusement park, and finally getting a slice of pizza. We were on the road home at 9pm, made impressive time getting back and were showered and starting to doze off in bed by 11.

As I said as we started our trip home, that was quite the beach weekend. I can always count on having a whole lot of fun when I go anywhere with Wes and, as it turns out, Jessie just adds to that. She encourages us to do silly things and, in my opinion, a life without a large amount of silliness is not a life worth writing home about.

It has been, to say the least, quite a year. In the last year, Wes and I invited Jessie to move in with us, bought a car, bought a house, and put on a burlesque show. Wes lost one job and picked up a much better one. I learned that I love more than one person very deeply. There have been wonderful ups and terrible downs, and I would say that the year averaged out to be pretty good. I found out that there are always new things to learn about the people you love. I learned that there are always new things to learn about you too.

As I have mentioned before, a common question Wes and I get as a married, polyamorous couple is “Well, if you’re going to have other relationships, why get married?” It’s usually not said that nicely, nor with as little venom as that, but you get the idea. Anyway, the answer, to me, is pretty simple. If I were feeling snarky, I would say that we just got married to reap the tax and health insurance benefits. This is true, of course, but it is not the only reason. We got married because we are completely committed to each other. Becoming legally bound was a final expression of this fact. Being polyamorous isn’t a symptom of impending failure of our relationship but rather a symptom of its strength. Wes and I love each other. We enjoy seeing each other happy. The additional relationships we have add to that strength. They make us better. We talk through things because communication and working things out is a priority. We dole out and accept challenges. We forgive.

And none of it feels like sacrifice. The only things that I have had to sacrifice to be happier in this life have been things like the coveting of jealousy, possessiveness, indulging of my ego, and the idea that because my insecurities are a part of who I am, I am powerless to stop their influence. I have not had to give up anything I wanted to have this life.

It will not always be easy, but, for me, the hardest part is dealing with people’s negative judgments and since there’s no way to avoid that no matter how “normal” or “good” you are, fuck it. All I can tell you is that 9 years down the road in the relationship and one year into marriage and Wes and I are very happy. Each day I feel luckier and luckier that I ended up with him because each day I am happier and healthier than I was the day before. And while Wes and I were happy when we were monogamous, we are most certainly happier now that we are not because we have filled our lives with amazing people. The love we have for others only adds to the love we have for each other and it would be a tragedy not to have something so wonderful. If this makes you think that what we have is a sham or a joke, well, so be it. I’ll be laughing all the way to the “bank”.

As we were driving home, Wes said, “Well, here we go. Leaving the beach and heading back to our regular hum drum existence!” I said, “That’s fine. Our regular existence is not particularly hum drum.” And Jessie said, “Our regular existence is awesome!”